A recipe for (unprocessed) Dark Chocolate Beet Bundt Cake

Now that we’re well into our challenge of no processed foods for the month of October, the cravings have kicked in something fierce. It may surprise you to know that sugar does not top my list of sought-after ingredients, instead it is cheese that is sorely missed from my diet. I’ve penciled in a wine & cheese for early in November; here’s hoping I can hold out until then.

A few years ago I played around with chocolate beet cupcakes, but always wanted them to be darker, richer, and more decadent. This cake meets all the above requirements and more. Each forkful is deeply satisfying, in the way that only a chocolate cake can be.

It is prepared with half whole wheat flour (although you’d never guess) which makes it more substantial, and it’s easier to walk away contented with just one piece. Maple syrup, honey and the natural sugars of the beets sweeten the cake as well as contribute to a deeper depth of flavor.

You may pine for the weekend G&T’s, potato chips, or ketchup during the October unprocessed challenge, but there’s absolutely no need to pine for chocolate cake. Not when recipes like this are available.

Dark Chocolate Beet Bundt Cake

Cook the beets ahead of time and this cake will come together fairly quickly. You can boil, steam, or roast your beets whole, then peel and grate them. Recipe adapted from the Green Market Baking Book.

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 10-cup bundt pan and dust it lightly with cocoa.

Grate the beets on a box grater and measure them; you should have 2 cups of grated beets. Transfer them to a medium colander and allow them to drain of any excess moisture while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the melted butter, olive oil, maple syrup and honey until everything is well blended.

Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until smooth. Add the vanilla extract.

Sift together the flours, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Gently fold the flour mixture into the wet ingredients, but do not over mix.

Fold the beets into the batter until distributed, then scrape the batter into the prepared bundt pan and spread around until it is even.

Bake for about 35-45 minutes, until a wooden skewer comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool, in the pan on a wire rack, for a good 20 minutes.

Carefully invert the pan onto a plate, tap gently, and the cake will drop out. Serve warm or cool. Will keep for up to four days, well wrapped in plastic.

Cooking has always been Aimée's preferred recreational activity, creative outlet, and source of relaxation. After nearly ten years in the professional cooking industry, she went from restaurant to RSS by trading her tongs and clogs for cookie cutters and a laptop, serving as editor here at Simple Bites. Her first book, Brown Eggs and Jam Jars - Family Recipes from the Kitchen of Simple Bites, was published in February 2015.

Its my son’s birthday…he picked out a cake from my cake cookbook. We’ve been doing so well moving towards a “whole foods” diet but I thought I would just go for the processed cake since its his birthday. But…then I see this recipe!! I’ll substitute this for the cake portion. I can’t wait to see how it turns out! T. you.

Good decision! My boys are 4 and 7 and devoured this cake. I told them halfway through that there was beets in it, but that didn’t change their feelings! Happy birthday to your son, Sarah. I’m sure he’ll love the cake.

I generally make things as unprocessed as possible – but your inclusion of ingredients such as cheese and sour cream on the processed list are confusing to me. Could you point me to a website or source that would detail why these are processed?

Also, why is white flour ok? Because in my mind that’s processed. I’m not trying to be contrary by any means! I really just want to know.

As far as dairy products, if there are ingredients I don’t recognize on the label, then I skip them. Often sour cream has thickening agents and cheese has coloring – just to name a few ‘processed’ ingredients.

Everyone is interpreting October unprocessed a different way, and that is okay. I’m choosing to skip most dairy, but use a little white flour. Whatever works for you!

Aimee, Daisy brand and Aldi both only list “cream, enzymes” on their sour cream. 😉 In case you wanted to add something in. And yes, on the cheese, it’s awesome to get a 5-lb block of white cheddar. These guys are local (in-state) to me but also ship: farmcountrycheese.com/ I wouldn’t do well w/o cheese…and chocolate! 😉 Katie

Thanks for your answer. 🙂 I went to the fridge and looked at my sour cream. I buy sour cream on such rare occasions, that it really is unusual that it’s in my fridge. BUT I read the ingredient list. Um, yeah. LOL

I can’t possibly include flour as unprocessed. So much of the wheatberry has been stripped out, GMO’d and chemical laden, I don’t use it. I’m going to try this with almond flour which is made from pulverized whole amonds and some potato flour. The rest of the recipe looks wonderful!

I’ve just very recently come around to beets on the savory side. When I roast them, they don’t taste like dirt to me! Woo hoo! And with a little goat cheese … yum. So I guess it’s high time I start wrapping my brain around beets in sweets. This amazing-looking cake is a great start!

Totally stoked to see this recipe! I’ve never baked with beets before (wow, that was alliterative…) but I’m really excited to try it, especially in an unprocessed recipe. I wonder if you could use spelt flour or another “alternative” flour and have it turn out OK. I bought a bag recently and have been pondering uses for it.

Yummm!! what a great recipe for October’s unprocessed month — I can’t get over how rich and delicious this cake looks – – and the fact that chocolate cake can be a little healthier – – well that’s just magical in my books 🙂

Oof, sorry – I even read the comments to see if anyone had asked, but I didn’t read all the instructions. (Typical.) 😉

I’m sort of in…but so busy, I just keep falling back on the few “processed” things we always had around, although they still have fairly decent ingredients. I hoped I might learn to make tortilla chips finally, but I can’t pass up the last few weeks of fresh salsa season – it’s so short, and I just didn’t make my own yet! *shrug* You’re all in, so awesome. I think I’d do better in Feb/March when there aren’t fun seasonal things to make… 🙂 Katie

I have to avoid several foods right now, what are your recommendations? No eggs, dairy, (gluten intolerant) to begin with, almonds, corn or refined sugars. BTW~ The cake looks amazingly yummy!! 🙂 Thanks for any ideas you may have! Becky

Yum! This cake does look fabulous, Aimee! I just got a bunch of beets in our CSA box this morning, so if I can muster the energy to do some baking, I am going to make this cake… If not, I’m saving the recipe for post-baby 🙂

A former coworker made chocolate beet cupcakes and they were divine! (He also made saguaro blossom muffins and prickly pear jams… he was amazing). But anyway, I’ve been meaning for months to try to get in touch with him and get that recipe – now I think I’ll just use yours. 🙂

For anyone wondering, these really DO make great cupcakes. I just tried it, and they are delicious! The recipe made 2 dozen. I did sub sprouted pastry flour for all of the flour and melted coconut oil for the olive oil. Cook time ended up being about 40 minutes. These are a hit! Thank you for the inspiration, Aimee. 🙂

I love your beet cupcake recipe — I top it with a thin layer of dark chocolate ganache, rather than cream cheese frosting, so it’s plenty intense! It’s my son’s favorite cupcake! I’ll try this one with the next load of CSA beets.

I’ve been eyeing up Nigel Slater’s chocolate beet cake, but the idea of this one with honey and maple syrup is so tempting! It looks incredibly moist and gives me a good excuse to get out my bundt tin. Thanks for the recipe!

It is a great cake, I made it in the cake tin. But I was just wondering what the size of bundt tin you used. Thanks in advance . I am a huge fan. Keep up a good work! Your site gives us a taste of Canada, while we are so far from home. Greetings from Switzerland!

My 2 1/2 year old son LOVES this cake. He devoured an entire slice and then tried to eat the rest of mine, haha. I let him have an extra small piece because with all the healthy ingredients, I didn’t feel like it was really junk food 🙂

Thank you! This was so moist and chocolatey. It’s our new favorite chocolate cake. Thank you so much. Instead of grating the roasted beets, we just threw them in the processor and pureed them until smooth. We used a container of Fage Yogurt with Blueberry sauce in place of the oil. We also added a 1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips to the batter (we love the flavor of melted chips in our muffins). This was phenomenal! Thank you, thank you. My three-year old son thanked me over and over again, while his twin sister kept saying “mmmmm, mmmm, mmmm, this is de-lic-ious.” Thank you for helping me feed my family healthier alternatives to the traditional store-boxed variety.

Thank you for this idea. I was just going through the recipe where it says you can cook the beets ahead of time to save time but then the instructions say to grate the beets. Colour me confused! Then I saw your tip of using the processor and I thought…magic! Can’t wait to make this for the office pot-luck!

Is there any substitute for olive oil, butter, and honey? The recipe sounds great but there are three types of sugar – beets, honey and maple syrup. Yes, they are healthy but adding oil and butter, I’m afraid the calories are sky high.

I LOVE this recipe! I made cupcakes and they are perfect! How can this be healthy? YUM! My kids love it, too. Thank you so much for sharing. I got 28 cupcakes and cooked them for 22 minutes. I added a little cinnamon to the batter and then frosted them with whipped cream I made with honey and a little cinnamon. I also used all whole wheat flour and used organic ingredients… this is one of my favorite recipes! They are a little soft and fall apart a bit so I bet this recipe would be better as a cake or a bunt cake like you had in your recipe. The next time I make this I’m going to top with raspberries I think.

I know this is an older post but I had to comment on this recipe. I’ll be honest, I was skeptical because beets taste like dirt. No matter how I prepare them, my husband will not eat them. I will choke them down in my smoothie but that’s it. But I received about 10 red & yellow beets in my CSA box and I panicked. But I found this recipe and OH MY GOODNESS – this cake is AMAZING!!! The most chocolatey, moist, yummy cake ever. I followed the recipe to a T and came out perfect. Next time, I might just use all sprouted whole wheat flour for more nutrition. Thank you so much Amiee.

This cake is perfect for that sweet tooth craving without killing the entire cardio workout you did that morning. I made this with unsweetened organic apple sauce instead of oil and one table spoon of oil only. I also added 3 personal size stevia packets in batch. And it turned out fantastic! Note I used vitamix to puree roasted beets and honestly they were a bit bigger than medium but I added them all. Mildly sweet but rich in chocolate flavor. We juice beets so this is a great way for me to get that pup in my diet. HAHA! Will add coffee next time. Thank you for sharing with us!

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I'm Aimée, and this blog is devoted to family focused food. This is an encouraging community that offers comprehensive recipes, simple preserving tutorials, and honest tips for cooking with kids. This is our family food life. Join us! Read more...